Page 30 of Caveman Alien's Terror

He ignores the waterskin I offer. “I wasn’t here for most of that time. I was on this planet, but my circumstances were not as luxurious as now.”

I take another swig of water myself. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. May I ask what happened?”

“You may not. Interrogation thus completed, it’s time for you to do some work. Find me gold, Astrid. Or if you can’t, find me some other items that have been made with care and effort. And that aren’t broken.”

“Can I eat this first?” I show him a piece of fruit from my pack. “It’s not as good as the fruit you gave me, but I still need it to do any work.”

“Be quick,” he growls. “I have already noticed that all the other species here must put things into them on a regular basis. Some of them do it with great vigor.”

I bite into the fruit. “And you don’t?”

“I needgold.”

“Yes, but maybe if you ate something, that need wouldn’t be as urgent.”

He puts a hand on my shoulder and stares into my eyes. “Astrid. The need for gold is always urgent. Even when Ihavegold, even when I’m curled up on my own hoard deep inside my lair, getting more is absolutely vital. It’s necessary. It’s crucial!”

How can one male be this scary and attractive at the same time?

“I understand,” I tell him, and I think I do. “You need gold like I need to eat.”

He squeezes my shoulder. “I need it much more than that. The lack of gold does kill a dragon eventually. But it’s more cruel than that. It leaves you alive for years, but it makes you weak. Likethis.” He grits his teeth as he gestures to his scandalously attractive body. “But you’re trying to understand, at least.” He bends low and kisses me on the lips, lingering more than last time. The touch itself sends tingles through my nipples and down my front, all from the expectation of what I hope will happen.

“All right,” I say when I’m breathing normally again. “I’ll try to find some objects that you might like.”

I briefly consider telling him that this is kind of my thing, that I was studying archeology when I was abducted. But I suspect he won’t care. “I will need to dig. Do the outcasts have a shovel or something like it?”

Praxigor quickly ascertains that they don’t, then commands them to make a shovel out of wood.

“I will look at the whole area,” I tell him. “Will you come along and keep me safe?”

Without a word, he strides into the woods, and I follow.

The area is overgrown with bushes and trees, but there are also heaps of the white stones, completely overgrown and covered in dirt. I find many unbroken ones, of various sizes and shapes, but all clearly cut and carved for constructing buildings. After a while I start to get the mental picture of a village with maybe eighty stone houses of an alien design, but vaguely recognizable to anyone who’s studied the excavations of Great Zimbabwe.

“I think you’re right,” I tell Praxigor when we stop in the middle of the village. “It was trampled by Bigs. Just one, but it was really big. You can still see the footprints there and there.” I point to depressions in the terrain where all the rocks have been crushed fine. “It totally flattened everything.”

“And? Where would they have kept the gold?”

I scratch my chin. “The way I know these huge dinosaurs, you can hear them coming from far away. I’m sure the people that lived here knew it was coming and tried to save everything of value. But they also didn’t rebuild the village. Not even one house. That’s unusual. I suppose it’s possible that the village was abandoned before it was destroyed.”

Praxigor sighs in exasperation. “Is all this talk helping?”

“It might be,” I tell him, looking around me. “This is how I think sometimes, speaking to myself. Sorry if it bothers you.”

“Think and speak all you want, as long as there’s gold at the end of it,” he grunts.

“It’s a strange place to build a village,” I keep thinking out loud. “There’s no obvious source for the stones. Where did they come from?”

One corner of Praxigor's mouth turns down in warning. “Still waiting for this to touch upon gold.”

“It could. Now, where I come from, a village like this would have had a temple. And I see a place that looks interesting.”

“A gold mine?” he suggests hopefully.

“No, a dome.” I point. “Covered in dirt and moss and bushes, but still a dome. None of the other things we’ve see here are round. It’s all straight angles. Except the dome.”

He taps his lips. “A vault for valuables?”

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